OpenAI says more than 230 million people worldwide ask health or wellness questions on the platform every week, representing about 5% of total ChatGPT queries. Until now, those conversations were mixed in with everything else people use ChatGPT for. ChatGPT Health moves them into a separate space with additional privacy controls. In fact, if you start a health-related conversation in ChatGPT, the platform will suggest moving into Health for those extra protections.

Most of us have health information scattered across patient portals, lab PDFs, visit summaries, insurance documents and wellness apps. ChatGPT Health is designed to pull those pieces together so you can understand what you’re looking at, track patterns over time and prepare for conversations with your health care providers.

ChatGPT Health is not intended to diagnose conditions or recommend treatment. It focuses on explaining results, reviewing trends, preparing questions and helping you make sense of routine health information. It has been programmed to assess needs for medical attention, and will make let you know if the information you’ve provided warrants a physician’s care. Still, you know yourself and loved ones best. If you or someone you care for is experiencing symptoms that concern you, don’t wait for ChatGPT to tell you to visit the doctor; just make the call.

Access is rolling out gradually. You can join the waitlist now. Once you have access, Health appears as its own tab in the ChatGPT sidebar. From there, you can upload files, connect apps or link medical records. Current integrations include Apple Health, MyFitnessPal and Function, along with other tools related to nutrition, fitness and wellness. Medical records are accessed through a partnership with b.well, which connects directly to healthcare providers. You can remove access at any time.

Privacy is a major part of how OpenAI is positioning this release. Health is siloed within ChatGPT, with conversations and memories kept separate from your regular chats. It has added layers of encryption over mainstream chats. According to OpenAI, Health conversations are not used to train its models. You can return to Health chats from your history, but the information itself does not flow back into your mainstream conversations.

That sounds reassuring, but it’s worth keeping expectations realistic. ChatGPT is still a system that fills gaps with made up information, a phenomenon called hallucinating. The key is providing as much information as possible. The more complete the data, the more useful the responses are likely to be. The opposite is also true.

ChatGPT Health makes it easy to upload lab results, visit summaries and app data, but you should think carefully about what you want to share. While OpenAI has a lot riding on this new product, and therefore should be motivated to protect your data, we all know that nothing is 100% safe on the internet. If you wouldn’t want a piece of information to be public, don’t share it.

ChatGPT Health was developed in collaboration with physicians. Over two years, more than 260 doctors across 60 countries and dozens of specialties reviewed model responses and provided feedback on safety, clarity and when to encourage follow-up care. That input shaped how the system explains information and how it avoids stepping into diagnosis or treatment decisions.

Compared with older health sites like WebMD, ChatGPT Health represents a shift away from static articles toward synthesis and explanation. Instead of jumping between pages, you can ask follow-up questions, clarify terms and focus on what applies to you. That can give you insights into your health or medical issues in general that could be very helpful. You will be able to spend as much time as you’d like doing your research without feeling rushed as you might asking questions in a busy doctor’s office.

For now, the sensible way to approach ChatGPT is as a consultant, but one that can make mistakes. You will have access to a physician-trained AI system that can connect different pieces of information and incorporate your personal health records. It can certainly explain medical terms in a way that you will understand through the back-and-forth conversational format. But when it comes to serious health concerns, your primary source of advice should be your physician.

Leslie Meredith has been writing about technology for more than a decade. As a mom of four, value, usefulness and online safety take priority. Have a question? Email Leslie at asklesliemeredith@gmail.com